other sweet shops in Darrowby, big double-fronted places with their
wares attractively displayed in the windows, but none of them did
anything like the trade of the poky establishment I had just left.
There was no doubt that it was all due to Geoff's unique selling
technique and it was certainly not an act on his part, it was born
of a completely sincere devotion to his calling, a delight in what
he was doing. His manner and "posh" diction gave rise to a certain
amount of ribald comment from men who had left the local school with
him at the age of fourteen, and in the pubs he was often referred to
as 'the bishop," but it was good-natured stuff because he was a
well-liked man. And, of course, the ladies adored him and flocked to
bask in his attentions.
About a month later I was in the shop again to get some of Rosie's
favourite liquorice all-sorts and the picture was the same--
Geoffrey smiling and booming, Alfred in his place, following every
move, the pair of them radiating dignity and well-being. As I
collected my sweets, the proprietor whispered in my ear. "I'll be
closing for lunch at twelve noon, Mr. Herriot. Would you be so kind
as to call in and examine Alfred?" "Yes, of course." I looked along
the counter at the big cat. "Is he ill?" "Oh, no, no ... but I just
feel there's something not right." Later I knocked at the closed
door and Geoffrey let me into the shop, empty for once, then through
the curtained doorway into his sitting room. Mrs. Hatfield was at a
table, drinking tea. She was a much earthier character than her
husband. "Now then, Mr. Herriot, you've come to see t"little cat."
"He isn't so little," I said, laughing. And indeed, Alfred looked
more massive than ever seated by the fire, looking calmly into the
flames. When he saw me he got up, stalked unhurriedly over the
carpet and arched his back against my legs. I felt strangely
honoured. "He's really beautiful, isn't he?" I murmured. I hadn't
had a close look at him for some time and the friendly face with the
dark stripes running down to the intelligent eyes appealed to me as
never before. "Yes," I said, stroking the fur which shone
luxuriantly in the flickering firelight, "you're a big beautiful
fellow." I turned to Mr. Hatfield. "He looks fine to me. What is it
that's worrying you?" "Oh, maybe it's nothing at all. His appearance
certainly has not altered in the slightest, but for over a week now
I've noticed that he is not quite so keen on his food, not quite so
lively. He's not really ill ... he's just different." "I see. Well,
let's have a look at him." I went over the cat carefully.
Temperature was normal, mucous membranes a healthy pink. I got out
my stethoscope and listened to heart and lungs--notothing abnormal
to hear. Feeling around the abdomen produced no clue. "Well, Mr.
Hatfield," I said, 'there doesn't seem to be anything obviously
wrong with him. He's maybe a bit run down, but he doesn't look it.
Anyway, I'll give him a vitamin injection. That should buck him up.
Let me know in a few days if he's no better." "Thank you indeed, sir.
I am most grateful. You have set my mind at rest." The big man
reached out a hand to his pet. The confident resonance of his voice
was belied by the expression of concern on his face. Seeing them
together made me sense anew the similarity of man and cat--human and
animal, yes, but alike in their impressiveness. I heard nothing
about Alfred for a week and assumed that he had returned to normal,
but then his master telephoned. "He's just the same, Mr. Herriot. In
fact, if anything, he has deteriorated slightly. I would be obliged
if you would look at him again." It was just as before. Nothing
definite to see even on close examination. I put him on to a course
of mixed minerals and vitamin tablets. There was no point in
launching into treatment with our new antibiotics--there was no
elevation of temperature, no indication of any infectious agent. I
passed the alley every day--it was only about a hundred yards from
Skeldale House--and I fell into the habit of stopping and looking in
through the little window of the shop. Each day, the familiar scene
presented itself; Geoff bowing and smiling to his customers and
Alfred sitting in his place at the end of the counter. Everything
seemed right, and yet ... there was something different about the
cat. I called in one evening and examined him again. "He's losing
weight," I said. Geoffrey nodded. "Yes, I do think so. He is still
eating fairly well, but not as much as before." "Give him another
few days on the tablets," I said, "and if he's no better I'll have
to get him round to the surgery and go into the thing a bit more
deeply." I had a nasty feeling there would be no improvement and
there wasn't, so one evening I took a cat cage round to the shop.
Alfred was so huge that there was a problem fitting him into the
container, but he didn't resist as I bundled him gently inside. At
the surgery I took a blood sample from him and X-rayed him. The
plate was perfectly clear and when the report came back from the
laboratory it showed no abnormality. In a way, it was reassuring,
but that did not help because the steady decline continued. The next
few weeks were something like a nightmare. My anxious peering
through the shop window became a daily ordeal. The big cat was still
in his place, but he was getting thinner and thinner until he was
almost unrecognisable. I rang the changes with every drug and
treatment I could think of, but nothing did any good. I had
Siegfried examine him, but he thought as I did. The progressive
emaciation was the sort of thing you would expect from an internal
tumour, but further X-rays still showed nothing. Alfred must have
been thoroughly fed up of all the pushing around, the tests, the
kneading of his abdomen, but at no time did he show any annoyance.
He accepted the whole thing placidly as was his wont. There was
another factor which made the situation much worse. Geoff himself
was wilting under the strain. His comfortable coating of flesh was
dropping steadily away from him, the normally florid cheeks were
pale and sunken and, worse still, his dramatic selling style
appeared to be deserting him. One day I left my viewpoint at the
window and pushed my way into the press of ladies in the shop. It
was a harrowing scene. Geoff, bowed and shrunken, was taking the
orders without even a smile, pouring the sweets listlessly into
their bags and mumbling a word or two. Gone was the booming voice
and the happy chatter of the customers, and a strange silence hung
over the company. It was just like any other sweet shop. Saddest
sight of all was Alfred, still sitting bravely upright in his place.
He was unbelievably gaunt, his fur had lost its bloom and he stared
straight ahead, dead-eyed, as though nothing interested him any more.
He was like a feline scarecrow. I couldn't stand it any longer. That
evening I went round to see Geoff Hatfield. "I saw your cat today,"
I said, "and he's going r
apidly downhill. Are there any new
symptoms?" The big man nodded dully. "Yes, as a matter of fact. I
was going to ring you. He's been vomiting a bit." I dug my nails
into my palms. "There it is again. Everything points to something
abnormal inside him and yet I can't find a thing." I bent down and
stroked Alfred. "I hate to see him like this. Look at his fur. It
used to be so glossy." "That's right," replied Geoff, "he's
neglecting himself. He never washes himself now. It's as though he
can't be bothered. And before, he was always at it--lick, lick, lick
for hours on end." I stared at him. His words had sparked something
in my mind. "Lick, lick, lick." I paused in thought. "Yes ... when I
think about it, no cat I ever knew washed himself as much as Alfred.
..." The spark suddenly became a flame and I jerked upright in my
chair. "Mr. Hatfield," I said, "I want to do an exploratory
operation!" "What do you mean?" "I think he's got a hair-ball inside
him and I want to operate to see if I'm right." "Open him up, you
mean?" "That's right." He put a hand over his eyes and his chin sank
onto his chest. He stayed like that for a long time, then he looked
at me with haunted eyes. "Oh, I don't know. I've never thought of
anything like that." "We've got to do something or this cat is going
to die." He bent and stroked Alfred's head again and again, then
without looking up he spoke in a husky voice. "All right, when?"
"Tomorrow morning." Next day, in the operating room, as Siegfried
and I bent over the sleeping cat, my mind was racing. We had been
doing much more small-animal surgery lately, but I had always known
what to expect. This time I felt as though I was venturing into the
unknown. I made an incision and in the stomach I found a large,
matted hair-ball, the cause of all the trouble. Something which
wouldn't show up on an X-ray plate. Siegfried grinned. "Well, now we
know!" "Yes," I said as the great waves of relief swept over me.
"Now we know." I found more, smaller hair-balls, all of which had to
be removed and then the incision stitched. I didn't like this. It
meant a bigger trauma and shock to my patient, but finally all was
done and only a neat row of skin sutures was visible. When I
returned Alfred to his home, his master could hardly bear to look at
him. At length he took a timid glance at the cat, still sleeping
under the anaesthetic. "Will he live?" he whispered. "He has a good
chance," I replied. "He has had some major surgery and it might take
him some time to get over it, but he's young and strong. He should
be all right." I could see Geoff wasn't convinced, and that was how
it was over the next few days. I kept visiting the little room
behind the shop to give the cat penicillin injections and it was
obvious that Geoff had made up his mind that Alfred was going to die.
Mrs. Hatfield was more optimistic, but she was worried about her
husband. "Eee, he's given up hope," she said. "And it's all because
Alfred just lies in his bed all day. I've tried to tell "im that
it'll be a bit o" time before the cat starts running around, but he
won't listen." She looked at me with anxious eyes. "And, you know,
it's getting him down, Mr. Herriot. He's a different man. Sometimes
I wonder if he'll ever be the same again." I went over and peeped
past the curtain into the shop. Geoff was there, doing his job like
an automaton. Haggard, unsmiling, silently handing out the sweets.
When he did speak it was in a listless monotone and I realised with
a sense of shock that his voice had lost all its old timbre. Mrs.
Hatfield was right. He was a different man. And, I thought, if he
stayed different, what would happen to his clientele? So far they
had remained faithful, but I had a feeling they would soon start to
drift away. It was a week before the picture began to change for the
better. I entered the sitting room, but Alfred wasn't there. Mrs.
Hatfield jumped up from her chair. "He's a lot better, Mr. Herriot,"
she said eagerly. "Eating well and seemed to want to go into t'shop.
He's in there with Geoff now." Again I took a surreptitious look
past the curtain. Alfred was back in his place, skinny but sitting
upright. But his master didn't look any better. I turned back into
the room. "Well, I won't need to come any more, Mrs. Hatfield. Your
cat is well on the way to recovery. He should soon be as good as new.
" I was quite confident about this, but I wasn't so sure about Geoff.
At this point, the rush of spring lambing and post-lambing troubles
overwhelmed me as it did every year, and I had little time to think
about my other cases. It must have been three weeks before I visited
the sweet shop to buy some chocolates for Helen. The place was
packed and as I pushed my way inside all my fears came rushing back
and I looked anxiously at man and cat. Alfred, massive and dignified
again, sat like a king at the far end of the counter. Geoff was
leaning on the counter with both hands, gazing closely into a lady's
face. "As I understand you, Mrs. Hird, you are looking for something
in the nature of a softer sweetmeat." The rich voice reverberated
round the little shop. "Could you perhaps mean a Turkish Delight?"
"Nay, Mr. Hatfield, it wasn't that. ..." His head fell on his chest
and he studied the polished boards of the counter with fierce
concentration. Then he looked up and pushed his face nearer to the
lady's. "A pastille, possibly ...?" "Nay ... nay." "A truffle? A
soft caramel? A peppermint cream?" "No, nowt like that." He
straightened up. This was a tough one. He folded his arms across his
chest and as he stared into space and took the long inhalation I
remembered so well I could see that he was a big man again, his
shoulders spreading wide, his face ruddy and well fleshed. Nothing
having evolved from his cogitations, his jaw jutted and he turned
his face upwards, seeking further inspiration from the ceiling.
Alfred, I noticed, looked upwards, too. There was a tense silence as
Geoff held this pose, then a smile crept slowly over his noble
features. He raised a finger. "Madam," he said, "I do fancy I have
it. Whitish, you said ... sometimes pink ... rather squashy. May I
suggest to you ... marshmallow?" Mrs. Hird thumped the counter. "Aye,
that's it, Mr. Hatfield. I just couldn't think of t"name." "Ha-ha, I
thought so," boomed the proprietor, his organ tones rolling to the
roof. He laughed, the ladies laughed, and I was positive that Alfred
laughed, too. All was well again. Everybody in the shop was happy--
Geoff, Alfred, the ladies and, not least, James Herriot.
Oscar The Socialite Cat
One late spring evening, when Helen and I were still living in the
little bed-sitter under the tiles of Skeldale House, Tristan shouted
up the stairs from the passage far below. "Jim! Jim!" I went out and
stuck my head over the bannisters. "What is it, Triss?" "Sorry to
bother you, Jim, but could you come down for a minute?" The upturned
face had an anxious look I went down the long flights of steps two
Tristan beckoned me through to the consulting room at the back of
the house. A teenage girl was standing by the table, her hand
resting on a stained roll of blanket. "It's a cat," Tristan said. He
pulled back a fold of the blanket and I looked down at a large,
deeply striped tabby. At least he would have been large if he had
had any flesh on his bones, but ribs and pelvis stood out painfully
through the fur and as I passed my hand over the motionless body I
could feel only a thin covering of skin. Tristan cleared his throat.
"There's something else, Jim." I looked at him curiously. For once
he didn't seem to have a joke in him. I watched as he gently lifted
one of the cat's hind legs. There was a large gash on his abdomen
and innumerable other wounds. I was still shocked and staring when
the girl spoke. "I saw this cat sitting in the dark, down Brown's
yard. I thought "e looked skinny, like, and a bit quiet and I bent
down to give "im a pat. Then I saw "e was badly hurt and I went home
for a blanket and brought "im round to you." "That was kind of you,"
I said. "Have you any idea who he belongs to?" The girl shook her
head. "No, he looks like a stray to me." "He does indeed." I dragged
my eyes away from the terrible wound. "You're Marjorie Simpson,
aren't you?" "Yes." "I know your dad well. He's our postman."
"That's right." She gave a half smile, then her lips trembled. "Well,
I reckon I'd better leave "im with you. You'll be going to put him
out of his misery. There's nothing anybody can do about ... about
that?" I shrugged and shook my head. The girl's eyes filled with
tears. She stretched out a hand and touched the emaciated animal,
then turned and walked quickly to the door. "Thanks again, Marjorie,
" I called after the retreating back. "And don't worry--we'll look
after him." In the silence that followed, Tristan and I looked down
at the shattered animal. Under the surgery lamp it was all too easy
to see. The injuries were very serious and the wounds were covered
in dirt and mud. "What d"you think did this?" Tristan said at length.
"Has he been run over?" "Maybe," I replied. "Could be anything. An
attack by a big dog or somebody could have kicked him or struck him.
" All things were possible with cats because some people seemed to
regard them as fair game for any cruelty. Tristan nodded. "Anyway,
whatever happened, he must have been on the verge of starvation.
He's a skeleton. I bet he's wandered miles from home." "Ah well," I
sighed. "There's only one thing to do, I'm afraid. It's hopeless."
Tristan didn't say anything but he whistled under his breath and
drew the tip of his forefinger again and again across the furry
cheek. And, unbelievably, from somewhere in the scraggy chest a
gentle purring arose. The young man looked at me, round-eyed. "My
God, do you hear that?" "Yes ... amazing in that condition. He's a
good-natured cat." Tristan, head bowed, continued his stroking. I
knew how he felt because, although he preserved a cheerfully hard-
boiled attitude to our patients, he couldn't kid me about one thing;
he had a soft spot for cats. Even now, when we are both around the
sixty mark, he often talks to me over a beer about the cat he has
had for many years. It is a typical relationship--they tease each
other unmercifully--but it is based on real affection. "It's no good,
Triss," I said gently. "It's got to be done." I reached for the
syringe but something in me rebelled against plunging a needle into
that pathetic body. Instead I pulled a fold of the blanket over the
cat's head. "Pour a little ether onto the cloth," I said. "He'll
just slip away." Wordlessly Tristan unscrewed the cap of the ether
bottle and poised it above the head. Then from under the shapeless
heap of blanket we heard it again; the deep purring which increased
in volume till it boomed in our ears like a distant motor cycle.
Tristan was like a man turned to stone, hand gripping the bottle
James Herriot's Cat Stories Page 2